In the calm before the April avalanche — with 13 shows opening on Broadway alone within the next four weeks, piling up to open as close as possible to the Tony Awards cut-off deadline — take this poll:
What Broadway Show Opening in April 2014 Are You Most Looking Forward To?
Below, a review of Terrence McNally’s 20th show on Broadway, and House of Cards creator Beau Willimon’s latest play Off-Off Broadway.
Week in New York Theater
March 24, 2014
The Book of Mormon, Three Years Old
The Few by Samuel Hunter (The Whale) about a man who abandoned his newspaper & now returns, at Rattlestick, April 23-June 8.
Jennifer Bowles to star as Parisian hooker, and Rob McClure (Chaplin) as enamored of her in 1960 musical Irma La Douce, City Center May7-11
Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams will announce the 64th Annual Outer Critics Circle Award nominations April 22nd. Winners May 12th
Miss Piggy getting a high-tech makeover? New reality show for puppet designers? Jim Henson’s son explains.
In “Mothers and Sons,” Terrence McNally’s well-acted, sometimes touching new play, Tyne Daly as Katharine Gerard pays an unexpected visit to Cal (Frederick Weller) the lover of her son Andre, who died long ago from AIDS. To understand why McNally wrote “Mothers and Sons,” it is necessary to go back 25 years. To understand why it doesn’t quite work as a play on Broadway, one must linger at the curtain call.
Complete review of Mothers and Sons
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Jonathan Groff and Lucy Liu will announce the nominations for 2014 Tony Awards on April 29.
“I experienced an increasingly intense itch to come back to the stage,” says Michael C Hall, explaining his role in The Realistic Joneses tells @KennedyTwits http://apne.ws/1m3QWnp
2014-15 Signature season to focus on A.R.Gurney and Naomi Wallace, with new plays also by Athol Fugard and Katori Hall
In “Fly By Night” at Playwrights Horizons , Adam Chanler-Berat will play a “melancholy sandwich maker” who finds love in 1965 blackout. May16-June 29
Jonathan Mandell: Are there now more people paid to publicize plays than are paid to review them?
Cathy Popowytsch @CatPop I would say that was always the case…
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Harvey Fierstein now has three shows on Broadway: Newsies, Kinky Boots, and MTC’s new Casa Valentina
Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert will perform in the Sydney Theatre Compay’s production of The Maids by Jean Genet, the Lincoln Center Festival this summer, August 6-16 at City Center.
Inventing Mary Martin, musical revue celebrating star of South Pacific,Sound of Music, Peter Pan York Theater April 15-May 18.
Watch Toni Braxton in After Midnight on Broadway
Pulitzer winner Ayad Akhtar’s The Who and The What will run at Lincoln Center Theater May 31-July 13. Sounds like Pakistani-American version of Other Desert Cities.
James M Iglehart not only wows as genie in Aladdin. Like Robin Williams, he created the schtick he does.
The Bridges of Madison County cast album will be released digitally April 15, in stores May 20 (32-page booklet with lyrics included) Composer Jason Robert Brown conduct the Broadway performance of the show on March 28.
Tennessee Williams, Born Today, Forever Quotable
“Time is the longest distance between two places.”
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World Theatre Day
he first theatrical costumes were goat skins,tragedy means goat song, and other facts for World Theatre Day
Thursday matinees begin NEXT Thursday, April 3: Phantom of the Opera Cinderella, and Mamma Mia will all start offering Thursday matinees (Phantom and Mamma Mia will still have Wednesday matinees as well, but Cinderella will not.)
Before he dons the mask for Phantom, Norm Lewis will lead an industry reading March 31 of Mandela: A New Musical.
Soon back on Broadway in the Chicago, Bianca Marroquin has also been named the first National Ambassador for Viva Broadway (the Broadway League’s initiative to reach out to Latino theatergoers)
Jonathan Groff, Rebecca Luker, Phillipa Soo etc sing Rodgers and Hammerstein at the 92nd St. Y as part of Lyrics and Lyricists. April 5-7, with Ted Chapin of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization.
Solo Shows (hour-long Howlround chat)
How do you know when a story should be written as a solo show? And also: When should it never be one?
Norm Reynolds @NormReyn: Do it as a solo show when you can’t see/hear it any other way.
Corinne Woods @woods_corinne When a single teller enhances the piece (because of a theme, personal connection to the work, theatricality, etc)
I just interviewed two separate solo artists who turned their public humiliations into public shows
Mike Albo and Peter Marino
Theaters call it dynamic pricing. To Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park), it’s scalping, NOT right for non-profits.
House of Cards writer goes Off-Off: my review of Breathing Time
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The difference between acting in films and plays, article in Vice by James Franco, making his Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men.
Tourists are lured in April to Paris because of the song, April in Paris. But its very rainy in April; the best weather doesn’t come until May. “Its come-hither words were written not by a Frenchman on the Left Bank of the Seine but on the West Side of Manhattan by a guy from the Lower East Side.” — composer Vernon Duke and lyricist Yip Harburg.
Everybody talks these days about emerging artists. But more artists are submerging. A few are merging. Most are urging. #gurgling
The lowdown on laughter: (eg) Only 20% of laughter is responding to something funny.
@NewYorkTheater @ken_ludwig @RockyBroadway @peta I Always love your round-ups!
— Jennifer Mudge (@JenniferMudge) March 28, 2014
